What is it about?
My chapter begins with the observation that human herders make ritual journeys or pilgrimages but often the herd animals accompanying them are not considered to be pilgrims. In contrast, in Isluga, an Andean community of llama, alpaca and sheep herders, people explicitly address their herd animals and sing to them as 'pilgrims' or 'palmers' . I explore to what extent llamas, alpacas and sheep can be regarded as pilgrims along with their human caretakers. The chapter demonstrates the different roles of people and their herd animals when they travel together on a shared path in making ritual offerings to the land that sustains them all.
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Why is it important?
This work forms part of a book which explores how different peoples in the Americas sustain what they consider to be proper relations between human beings, other kinds of animals and the environment they all inhabit. The chapter demonstrates how concepts such as nature and culture are not necessarily antithetically opposed to each other. It shows how Isluga people and their herd animals interact to make meaningful connections with the surrounding hills, rocks and pasture grounds in an environment cultivated by many generations of human beings, llamas, alpacas and sheep.
Perspectives
Writing this chapter enabled me to engage with the work of social scientists who are challenging ways of thinking that rely on allegedly overarching Western modes of thought. By demonstrating how Isluga people personify herd animals and landforms, I sought to clarify how pilgrimages undertaken by people and herd animals serve as a rite of inclusion rather than a rite of exclusion, in which the human being is considered to be the pilgrim and the herd animal is not. In my conclusion, I indicate that nature-culture or human-animal dualisms are complex and not consistently contrastive in either 'Andean' or 'Western' philosophical traditions. I hope readers will find this perspective helpful for thinking about volition in nonhuman animals as well as the sustainability of herding as a way of life.
Penelope Dransart
University of Aberdeen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Pilgrims and Other Sorts of Personifications: Nonhuman Animals as Ritual Participants in Isluga, Northern Chile, July 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004679450_006.
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